Keywords: Jose Ramos-Horta
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INTERNATIONAL
- Pat Walsh
- 04 October 2023
3 Comments
Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao's meeting with China's President Xi Jinping signals deeper cooperation between Timor-Leste and China. This evolving alliance, closely watched by Australia, raises questions about Beijing's motives and Timor-Leste's historical indebtedness. As China expands its influence in the Indo-Pacific, Timor-Leste's diplomatic balancing act comes under scrutiny.
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RELIGION
While the church in East Timor has its hands full serving its large membership, a big challenge is to work out what its role should be in post-war Timor. Rather than entrench its comfortable status quo, Cardinal Virgilio, educated in the Philippines and from an order skilled in youth education, must ensure that the church’s new status is used to move it towards the model advocated by Pope Francis.
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INTERNATIONAL
- Sophie Raynor
- 05 June 2019
9 Comments
For years, we've positioned ourselves as an international champion of moral righteousness, of sovereignty and of self-determination, and as Timor-Leste's liberator. But we can't have it both ways. Taking unearned Timor Sea wealth is another in a long line of Australia's failure to do the right thing by Timor-Leste.
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INTERNATIONAL
Both candidates for Indonesia's 9 July presidential election – Jokowi and Prabowo – have said Australia does not seem to trust Indonesia, but they would continue President SBY’s good neighbour policy. Prabowo later repeated this assurance to the media and diplomats. His message is that Australia and the international community have nothing to worry about from a Prabowo presidency. The prospects are very different.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
The weather seemed to express the mood of this city of international public servants paid to resolve the world's problem. Over dinner we discussed health and human rights for remote rural communities in the poorest corners of the world. That's Geneva: clean, ordered, pretty, earnest, and struggling to make the world in its image.
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RELIGION
- Frank Brennan
- 14 May 2013
27 Comments
Australian governments of both political persuasions have reassured the Australian public that they are decent and special when it comes to dealing with the Timorese over disagreements in the Timor Sea. Time for such special pleading is over. For the good of ongoing relations between these two unequal neighbours, it is time for Australia to commit to negotiating final maritime boundaries.
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AUSTRALIA
- Michael Mullins
- 18 May 2012
12 Comments
With East Timor marking ten years of independence on Sunday, it is relevant to ask which nation in particular it is celebrating independence from. In one sense East Timorese value independence because it is a reminder that they do not hold ties and obligations to Australia, which might have become their neo-colonial master.
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AUSTRALIA
East Timor is living far too dangerously by dumping its incumbent president Jose Ramos-Horta in last weekend's election. It remains to be seen whether Ramos-Horta will continue in public life or retire, but there's no doubt the nation would do well to use his vast experience as an elder statesman.
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AUSTRALIA
- Paul Cleary
- 25 August 2010
3 Comments
Hundreds of Timorese men and boys served alongide Australian fighters in an amazing guerilla campaign throughout 1942 that tied up several thousand Japanese troops while the battle for
New Guinea was underway. Australia has made at best half-hearted efforts to acknowledge this debt.
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AUSTRALIA
- Paul Cleary
- 24 August 2010
3 Comments
Kevin Rudd's failure to embrace the Timor legend with more imagination and
substance was a missed opportunity to connect with Labor's Second World
War legacy. Wartime Prime Minister John Curtin saw the guerilla war in
Timor as a unique and significant part of turning back the Japanese
tide.
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RELIGION
- Frank Brennan
- 21 July 2010
11 Comments
The idea of a regional processing centre for asylum seekers requires a lot of detailed diplomatic work.
If Gillard is elected Prime Minister, it could be Kevin Rudd's first test as Foreign Minister. Whoever is elected, and wherever such a
centre is located, it will not be East Timor.
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INTERNATIONAL
- Jack de Groot
- 09 July 2010
21 Comments
Julia Gillard said 'people like my own parents who have worked hard
all their lives can't abide the idea that others might get an inside
track to special privileges'. Managing similar perceptions in East Timor, where there is a tide of resentment against Australia among parts of
the population, will be a challenge.
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